Thursday, February 6, 2014

Mighty Oaks – A Band Review

If you are part of a band with members from the U.S., the U.K. and Italy, how do you respond when asked to identify your location? Well, the Facebook page of Mighty Oaks answers the question – “Berlin, Germany.” [OK, that wasn’t our guess.]

Mighty Oaks will release the album “Howl” on February 28. The band is currently encouraging pre-orders of the album. Mighty Oaks is comprised of Ian Hopper (vocals, mandolin, acoustic guitar, kick drum) from the U.S., Claudio Donzelle (vocals, banjo, guitars, mandolin, keyboard/piano) from Italy, and Craig Saunders (vocals, bass) from the U.K. Two mandolins!

The list of songs on the upcoming album is included below. From that list, only “Just One Day” is currently available on Soundcloud ("Picture" is there, but it's not the piano version). However, there is a video for “Brother.” An older song, “Driftwood Seat,” is also included in this post, because the song shows the skill of Mighty Oaks in blending the mandolin and the electric guitar (but the harmonization is not as strong as in the band’s more recent work). After listening to the music of Mighty Oaks over the past week, we are firmly entrenched in the position of being one of their fans waiting somewhat impatiently for the release of "Howl."